As is known in the medical community, a need exists for a device and/or method to facilitate the easy removal of necrotic tissue from wounds such as diabetic ulcers. The process of doing so is known as debridement. Current forms of debridement include surgical, mechanical, autolytic, enzymatic and biological processes. Surgical debridement entails cutting away the necrotic tissue. Mechanical debridement involves using non-surgical mechanical methods to remove any dead tissue. For instance, one process involves applying saline-wetted gauze to the wound, allowing it to dry and then peeling away the gauze along with any adherent tissue. Surgical and mechanical procedures are often painful, and require some form of anesthetic.
Autolytic debridement entails allowing proteases naturally present in the patient to degrade the dead tissue. In contrast, enzymatic debridement involves adding proteases such as papain or collagenase to the wound to facilitate “removal” of the dead tissue. However, exogenous enzymes such as papain or collagenase attack both normal and necrotic tissues. Therefore, these enzymes must not be applied to healthy tissue. Finally, biological debridement involves using living organisms to remove necrotic tissue. For instance, one example of biological debridement involves applying maggots to a wound. Although this can be an effective means for debriding a wound, for obvious reasons most patients would find the procedure far too disagreeable.
Nitric oxide has been used in gaseous form to facilitate wound healing. For instance, devices exist that are gas chambers designed to conform to or surround a wound and apply gaseous nitric oxide thereto. This process has not been applied to wound debridement, but rather to stimulating the patient's tissues to facilitate healing, e.g., by increasing blood flow. Additionally, this process is cumbersome inasmuch as it requires connection to an external gas source and various fluidic parts. Furthermore, the process can incapacitate the patient when the treatment is applied to a foot, for instance.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for debridement devices and methods that are both convenient to use and that cause less physical and psychological discomfort than the devices and/or methods currently utilized within the art.